


A Type of Motivation

by rixinaugust



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Mortal, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Attempted Murder, But I can't write romance to save my life, I say romance coded, I wrote this in a Valentine's day candy induced fever dream, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, So it could probably be read as friendship, no beta we die like bianca
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29441838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rixinaugust/pseuds/rixinaugust
Summary: A romance-coded flash fiction compellation exploring what some consider the darker side of humanity.Or,Meet-cutes, meet-uglies, and meet-somewhere-in-betweens.
Relationships: Luke Castellan/Thalia Grace
Kudos: 4





	A Type of Motivation

**Author's Note:**

> These are shorts that I do not plan on expanding. If any of these resonate with you, feel free to expand on it - I would appreciate if you let me know through either a comment below the chapter the idea came from or a mention in your post, but anything posted here is fair game.

Thalia is twenty-two when she finds out that she's dying.

* * *

“Just consider it, Thals.” Her cousin’s voice sounds pathetic from the staticky cell line sitting on the dining room table of her mother’s house. She wonders, not for the first time, if the lack of quality comes from the fact that they’re on the other side of the country from her father and cousins. 

She’s only making this phone call out of a twisted sense of obligation. “No. Just… no.” 

“You have to!” He insists, sounding every bit his ten years of age. Something churns inside her. Maybe this was the wrong decision, she can’t just leave him like that, leave him vulnerable… 

Anger overtakes her guilt. She's only sixteen, she shouldn't have to deal with this. “I am not! I don’t have to do anything! I don’t give a f-”

“How do you think I’m feeling, Grace? How-” She can’t let him finish his sentence, she can’t let the guilt come back. 

“You’re feeling! You didn’t watch her die! I just want a normal life, Di Angelo.”

“You can’t run away from this forever.” She shakes her head, not that he can see. She can very well try. There’s no reason to go back to her father, to watching her cousins battle for who deserves attention from her father and her uncles, to go back to watching innocent children die. 

“Watch me,” she says, but he’s already ended the call.

* * *

“I have a routine, Phoebe. I can’t just disregard it.” She’s already irritated at her coworker - not that she’s anything but annoyed with Phoebe, even on a good day. She’s fought tooth-and-nail for this boring life, where the only things that break up the monotony of filling out paperwork for people she couldn’t care less about is whatever poor intern Phoebe wants to cheat on her husband with. Sometimes she wishes it was more boring, but either way, the last thing she’s going to do is go to the holiday party. 

“It’s a company party, your stupid schedule can’t be that important.” 

Thalia scoffs. “As if. I have a doctor’s appointment, anyways.” 

(She doesn’t, but it shuts Phoebe up. It wouldn’t be a bad idea either, so she calls up her primary care physician to schedule an appointment that evening, once she’s alone in her apartment and putting together a box of mac-and-cheese. Her hands shake and her heart races, but they do have an opening on the afternoon of the party, so she counts it as a win.) 

* * *

It takes until she’s twenty-four to come to terms the fact that she’s dying. 

The pain is hard to ignore, now. It drives its way up her spine all hours of the day, and she almost considers quitting her job, no matter how much it would break the routine she’s meticulously built in the years since her sixteenth birthday brought about the death of her cousin. 

She almost wants to pick up the phone and dial the number that she knows will connect her to her brother - he should be nineteen now, far from the eleven year old she left in San Francisco all those years ago. She wonders if he still remembers her, if he still understands why she left. She wonders if he would care that she’s about to be gone from this world. For good. 

* * *

In the end, she does none of that. 

She’s running out of time, she knows. In the back of her closet, she still has her old clothes, still has the reminders of a life she’s spent eight years trying to forget. She still clutches to the mementos that reek of her father’s disappointment. 

It’s been a long time since she’s longed for his approval, but she does now. She does now as she lays on her bed and pushes away tears. She longs for him to hold her in his arms - like he’s only done once that she can remember - longs for him to tell her she’s done enough.

Because she has done enough. She’s worked for the life she has now, even if it would never be the one Jupiter Grace would want for her. 

Has she done enough?

* * *

The phone burns in her hands. 

She tosses it to the side. This isn’t who she is. She’s been lying to herself for eight years. Hell, she’s been lying to herself for her whole life. But… 

It doesn’t matter. She throws her phone into the back of the closet. It clangs on the wall, leaving a dent where it landed, but that doesn’t matter either. She pulls on a pair of ripped jeans, fingers fumbling on the laces of her combat boots. As she steps outside, no plan, no routine, she tugs her old leather jacket around her shoulders to shield her from the cold. 

The night is dark, and she knows already she won’t be able to make it to work the next day, but if she’s going to die soon, she’s not sure it’s worth it anymore. 

She hates her monotonous desk job.

* * *

“Hey! Dude, can you just like… not?” She’s not entirely sure why she yelled - in fact, the only reason she knows she was the one who yelled is because there’s no one else around. The alleyway is dark, and besides herself there are two other people. One is a younger man, blonde hair glistening in the dim light. He holds a knife to the throat of someone else, maybe a woman? Thalia can’t tell. 

He pauses, turning his head slowly towards her. “What?”

“Can you,” she waves her arms around like it’s obvious what she’s trying to say. “You know, not murder that person?”

He furrows his brow. Are murderers supposed to be this cute, or is it just her way of flirting with the death that’s coming for her anyways? “Why?” 

“Murder… is… bad…?”

“Hm.” He tugs at his hair with his fingers. She can’t tell if they're already stained with blood, or if the light is making her see things weirdly. “How about you give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you.”

Well. That’s one she doesn’t exactly have to think about. “I’m about to die without your help. Also, I’ve been told I’m a pretty good kisser?” 

Wait a second, what was that last part?

He pulls the knife away from his victim’s neck, looking at it with disdain. “Hm.” 

The victim slinks away. “Hm,” she mimics.

“Father will be disappointed,” he says flatly, as though his father’s disappointment is nothing but a tick mark on a to do list, though she knows it’s not. She’s intimately familiar with his kind of family; it mirrors her own. 

Against her better judgement, she sticks out a hand for him to shake. “Thalia,” she says. 

The stare he returns would make anyone else quiver. But she meets his eyes, almost daring him to try something. Instead, he grasps her hand firmly. “Luke. Were you serious about that kiss?” 


End file.
